Minimizing Metastasis

Minimizing Metastasis

The relationship between stress and cancer

There’s not much evidence to suggest stress can outright cause cancer, but it can certainly exacerbate risks and symptoms.

For one thing, some of the unhealthy ways of coping with stress – smoking, drinking, overeating – increase cancer risks. And those three things, along with becoming sedentary, may make things worse for people who have cancer already. Per the National Cancer Institute, there is no evidence that healthy ways of dealing with stress improve cancer survival rate, but they can improve quality of life after treatment.

A 2010 study published in Future Oncology showed that while numerous epidemiological and clinical studies established strong links between cancer progression and stress – as well as depression and social isolation – there was very little evidence to show any of those factors could actually cause cancer.

The study looked at experiments conducted with mice who were subjected to conditions designed to increase stress, which showed that cancer grew and metastasized more quickly in the stressed mice. Other studies on mice and on lab-grown human cancer cells found that norepinephrine, a hormone released in response to stress, may also promote metastasis as well as angiogenesis (the growth of new blood vessels, which tumors need to expand). On the other hand, dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is reduced in response to chronic stress, inhibits angiogenesis.